To Heir is Human
by FantasiaWandering
Summary: Two years after Barrier Fall, the Kingdom of Monsters is reminded that their ambassador and heir to the throne is still only a human child. But as Frisk recovers, it soon becomes clear that Frisk isn't the only one with healing to do. (Takes place in the Under Shield universe)
1. To heir is human

_Takes place about two years after Barrier Fall, when Frisk is ten or so. Provides a little bit of backstory relevant to what's coming next in Under Shield._

* * *

 _You are burning._

 _Whimpering, you try to move, but something wraps tightly around your limbs. Though you struggle, you feel only clammy, sweat-soaked damp around you, and a deep voice speaking from far away. You know that voice. You know…_

 _You are burning. He stands before you, hulking against the darkness, tears streaming down his face as you cry for help, but there will be no mercy. Not now. Not ever, as you burn over and over again, until one day you'll just give up and let the cruel points of the trident rip the soul from your body-_

 **hey, now. nothing wrong with a stroll down memory lane, but it looks like you took a wrong turn into a bad neighbourhood.**

 _This voice is different. You know this one too. You try to focus on it, but it hurts so much… You are burning…_

 **that was then. this is now. we need you to come back to the here and now, pal. too many people are depending on you. 'sides, if papyrus crams any more balloons in here, the house is gonna float off, which tori won't like at all, and i kind of prefer my bro in once piece. here. lemme show you a shortcut. someone here really needs to talk to you.**

 _Cold fingers wrap around your hands. A flare in the dark, blue against the burning, and you surge toward it. That first voice is there too, though, and you are frightened. You pause just shy of surfacing from the dark and linger, listening. It's so much clearer now, and it shakes other memories loose from the dark…._

"Frisk. You… you can't give up. You have to stay determined…."

 _("Katie… Please… wake up… I don't like this plan anymore….")_

 _No! You don't want to remember that! You struggle against the memory, gasping for air, and the fire sears your throat. Panic tightens around your heart, and a harsh, ragged cry tears its way out of you._

 _The deep voice makes a terrible sound. It speaks to you of pain, and heartbreak, and you flinch away from it, but there are hands against your brow, smoothing the damp hair from your face. Those hands… you remember the pain they caused. Remember your own hands inflicting pain in turn, until they were stained red, for he gave you no other choice…. But there is no pain now. Nothing but gentle comfort as they lift your head and press a cup to your cracked lips, and something warm and honey-sweet soothes your tortured throat and lets you breathe again._

"There… there's a good child. The tea… the tea will help…"

 _A sound nearby, strange, a soft bumping, like someone trying to push through a forest of balloons… and then a new voice that floats around you, familiar and beloved, sweet as cinnamon and butterscotch._ "...Asgore? Have you been here all night?"

"I… yes. I think they are dreaming, and I do not think the dreams are pleasant. The… the tea seems to help."

 _A new hand against your sweat-dampened brow, but even this… even this brings with it memories of fire and pain, though not nearly so bad as the other._ "I daresay you are correct. I should like to get your recipe, when Frisk is well again. I have not tried this blend before."

"Well..." _That great, strong voice breaks on the word._ "You think they will be, then?"

"I do." _The bed dips as a weight settles beside you, and a soft hand strokes your hair._ "Frisk is a human child, and human children do sometimes fall ill. They have the combined might of human medicine and our magic working together to cure this illness. I promise you, Frisk _is_ improving. This… this is not _that_."

"Frisk is such a little thing…" _Memory swims to greet you through the dark, and you are not even certain that this one is yours. You can see a face - your face - framed in gold. Standing in a garden of golden flowers, so small against them, looking down in surprise as a watering can falls, forgotten, to the blossoms. Again, your face turns up to the great height from which you see yourself, and the look on your face - fear and hope at once - drives through you like a blade._

 _A cry from the here and now shatters the memory, and huge hands lift you in your swathe of blankets. Strong arms surround you, forming a bulwark against the darkness. That great, towering bulk still looms over you, but now it feels less a threat, and more a shelter from the fire._

"Tori, I can't… I can't go through this again." _Those strong arms tighten around you, and you can feel them trembling as that strength - as Asgore - cradles you against his chest. You feel the pounding of his heart through the soft silk of his shirt._

 _A soft sigh, and the scent of clover and honey swirls around you as Toriel moves closer. Asgore shifts, and fabric rustles, and you have had been hugged by Toriel often enough to know that rustle when you hear it._ "Oh, Gorey. Frisk will wake. You will see."

"Are you sure?"

 _Gentle laughter, tinged with awe._ "That child has more determination than every monster in this house combined. They will wake. Just give them time. Some hurts take a while to heal."

 _A slight shift, and you hear the soft brush of horn against horn as two heads lean against each other, an old, unthinking show of mutual support._ "All right. I will believe. But... "

"Hmmm?"

"Do you think that after… after this…. we might…?"

 _He cannot finish the question. You can feel it in the way his chest tightens as he holds you against it. Toriel is silent for a long moment, as the air drips with pain and regret._

"You have been good to Frisk," _she says at last._ "I reconciled with you for Frisk's sake, and I will admit that I believed you would be father in title only, but I can see how much you have come to care for this little one. I can see, too, how much Frisk cares for you. I have no question that Frisk has forgiven you for what you tried to do. How, then, could I do any less?"

 _Hope surges like a palpable thing. You can feel it in the rush of breath that swells the chest beneath you. In the shock that runs through the arms that hold you close. Hope charges the air until you are breathing it in, like a cool mist against your parched throat. But hope freezes as Toriel clears her throat._ "I did not say that I have forgiven you."

"But if you have forgiven me for Frisk, what other reasons could there be-?"

 _It is the wrong thing. You wish you could cry a warning, but you remain helpless, floating in the dark, as Toriel shifts away from Asgore, leaving a void of cold in her wake._

"Emily."

"...Emily?" _Confusion rings in Asgore's voice._

 _Toriel draws a breath sharp with pain._ "She had the most beautiful hair. There was not much to dress it within the Ruins, but I found a ribbon that was only a little faded, and it kept it out of her way as she pretended to help me make dinner with her little toy knife. She was a quiet, patient little thing."

 _He understands now. You can feel the tension, the panic racing through him._ "Tori-"

"Do _not_ 'Tori' me, Dreemurr, I am not finished!" _Even he knows better than to contradict that particular voice, and she presses on. Her words echo through him like blows; you can feel the jolt as each one strikes a nerve and Asgore quivers beneath the stinging rain of them._

"Alexander. So brave. Convinced that nothing in the world could hurt him, so he faced every challenge head-on. Lin, a sweet creature of beauty and grace. When she danced, there was such joy on her face that she _shone._ " _Toriel's breath comes ragged with old, remembered grief._ "And then… then, I stopped asking for their names. I thought it would make things easier, somehow. But I still _knew_ them. My little scholar, so thoughtful and studious. He cracked his glasses in the fall, and had to make do with my old, clouded pair, but he persevered. My kind little shadow, who wanted only to see me smile, and learned to fry snails despite her own distaste for them because she knew how much I liked them. The precious little sheriff, so concerned with righting wrongs that I could not convince him to stay. He all but ran from the Ruins, so determined was he to face you and set things right."

 _A low, pained sound escapes Asgore, but Toriel presses on, without mercy._

"I know how much it hurts you to see Frisk this way. How could I not? I know how unbearable it is, the very thought of losing a third child. But you forget; Frisk is not my third child, Asgore, but my _ninth_. There were six others that you took from me. Oh, I know you regretted it, yet you could do what you did to those children because they were not yours… but they were _mine._ I _loved_ them, though I knew them but briefly. Do you know what it did to me, to send them to you, knowing what would become of them? And that it was _your_ hands that would do the terrible deed? I tried to keep them with me, but in the end, they were too human, and all of them chose to go. And then… and then Frisk. That precious child lived with me for months before they finally asked to leave, and I still do not truly understand why. We were so happy. I showed them my favourite spot for catching bugs, and we read stories every night, and explored the Ruins together… they called me "Mother"... From the moment I set eyes upon them, it felt less like a first meeting, and more of a homecoming. Surely, I thought, this child was different. This child would be content to stay. As the weeks turned to months, I finally allowed myself to believe. I was even prepared to ask for their true name. But then they asked me to show them the way out of the Ruins, and I couldn't stand to lose this one, too. I tried to destroy the door rather than let you have them, but they wouldn't let me. They just stood there, staring at me as I tried to frighten them off, until I could not bear it any longer. They just said it was… it was time. And in the end, it was also my time. I _knew_ this determined little child would not lose to you, and I could not let them kill you."

 _Toriel's voice grows distant as she speaks, accompanied by the soft bumping of balloons. As she unleashes the years of fury and heartbreak, the tremors in the arms that hold you grow progressively worse, and you can hear the hitch in Asgore's breathing as he struggles beneath Toriel's merciless onslaught of words._

"I am so, so sorry." _His voice is shattered and raw._ "I would undo it all, if I could."

"But you cannot. I have forgiven you for Frisk.. But I do not yet know how to forgive you all the others."

 _With that, she is gone, and the great tower of strength that holds you cracks and shatters, and folds around you, wracked with sobs. Tears rain upon the sweat-dampened blankets that swaddle you, and though you still float in the dark just before waking, the pain in that soul cries out to you._

 _Monster souls are made of love, and compassion, and hope. The first two you know all too well. There is a reason you love Asgore. Since the Barrier fell, he has done everything in his power to be as much of a father to you as you needed, and you have never doubted the sincerity of his actions. He has been kind and loving not out of duty or obligation, but because that is who he is, and because he loves you. Yet those first two qualities are nothing without the third, and without it, a monster's soul could shatter beneath the weight of the world. You can feel the cracks running through him now as his hope bleeds away, and it is unbearable. And so you move through the dark, pressing against the last veil that keeps you from waking, and the fever breaks beneath your touch._

Your eyes open slowly, and it is not an easy feat, caked as they are with sleep from the fever. Colour assails you from all sides, and you blink beneath the brilliance of Asgore's patterned shirt, and of the dozens of balloons that sway around your bed, bumping up against the ceiling, all bearing some variation on the words "GET WELL SOON, HUMAN!" (though the one directly above you simply says "NYEH!"). As your eyes gradually adjust, your gaze drifts to Asgore's face, and the despair in it breaks your heart.

But your heart is not one that is inclined to stay broken. You have far more determination than that. Though your muscles are sore, and weak from days of illness, one hand finds its way free of the blankets, drifting upward until it rests against the side of his face, and you gently pat the tear-damp fur of his beard.

At your touch, his eyes snap open, and as he looks down upon you with fear and wonder. You manage a smile in return, and if it quivers a little from the effort, it is no less genuine for it. "She needs time," you say in a voice little more than a whisper, but he has no difficulty hearing you. You can tell in the shame that blossoms across his face as he realizes how much you have heard. You shake your head, trembling with the effort. One of his hands covers the one you have pressed against his cheek, and it gives you strength enough to find the words you need. "Sometimes it takes a long time to heal when you're hurt. Sometimes, you have to rebuild everything from the beginning to make things right. But we'll do it. She loves you. Trust me, Dad."

The word echoes oddly through the room and sits strangely on your tongue, and only then do you realize that it's the first time you have said it to him. Immediately, you know it was the right choice. For just before he pulls you close and nuzzles his nose against the top of your head in raw, unspoken gratitude, you can see the hope return to the warm depths of his eyes.

This time, the warmth brings only comfort.


	2. to forgive, determined

You doze fitfully, drifting in and out of sleep, and each time you do, Asgore has slumped further and further forward. Finally, you wake to find him half on top of you, snoring softly. Your hand is dwarfed by both of his as he clings tightly to it, and your swaddling blankets, though warm and dry now, thanks to his magic, prevent you from doing much of anything to free yourself from this predicament. Before you can figure out what to do about it, Asgore's massive weight shifts, and you slide out from beneath him, blankets and all.

"Thanks," you whisper, not wanting to wake your father. He needs a good sleep. Besides which, your throat still hurts.

" **no problem. tori keeps saying how you need to be well-rounded, and you were starting to look a little flat.** "

Laughing hurts too much, but you give Sans a tired smile as he emerges from the dark beside the bed. The teacup Asgore has been using all night is in his hands. The little magical fire Asgore was using to warm the teapot fell asleep when he did, and though the fever makes time fuzzy, you're pretty sure it's been out for a while. You wrinkle your nose at the thought of what's in the cup. "Isn't that cold by now?"

" **i'd say it's not so hot, but even i know the big guy makes the best tea in town** **.** " He props a pillow behind you so that you can sit up a little, and helps you to wrap your shaking hands around the teacup. The heat of the cup brings relief to your chilled hands, and the warm, sweet tea eases the pain in your throat. " **how's that?** "

Just a short while ago, you would have given anything to make the fire stop. Now that the fever has broken, you are starting to feel like you'll never be warm again despite the blankets Asgore has wrapped you in. But the tea sinks down to your bones and warms them from within, and you sigh softly. "Better."

" **good**." He tosses the empty teacup over his shoulder into the dark, accompanied by the bumping of balloons as it passes. There's no accompanying smash - Sans knows better than to intentionally damage Toriel's teacups - but you've no doubt Papyrus will find it someplace really inconvenient in the next few days. You're bracing for another pun, but Sans reaches forward instead, taking hold of the hand that Asgore isn't clinging to as he leans against the edge of your bed. " **you had us worried. i had my hands full keeping papyrus and undyne from helping out too much. they meant well, but tori looked like she was about ready to set something on fire, and not in a fun way.** " He winks, leaning in conspiratorially. " **i had to be extra-super lazy just to keep them distracted. it was a ton of work.** "

"A skele-ton?" you ask quietly, giving him a shy grin.

Laughing softly, he ruffles your damp hair. " ** _there_** **you are. glad to have you back, kid.** "

You glance over at the slumbering monarch on the other side of the bed, and wonder when he last slept. "Sorry. I didn't mean to… Guess there's a lot of work at the embassy to catch up on now, huh."

" **hey**." Something in his voice draws your attention back to him, and a bony finger taps firmly against your nose. " **'s'not your fault you got sick, kiddo. you're only human. and we didn't need you back 'cause there's ambassador-y stuff to do. we needed you back 'cause you're _you._ just - how 'bout next time you tell somebody you're not feeling good _before_ you get this bad.** " Guilt nags at you and you can feel the heat rising to your face, but Sans just shakes his head and gives your hand a pat. " **it's not all about what you can do for us, you know. half of it is making sure that we're making _you_ happy. talk to me, squirt.** "

He can see right through you. He always can. The tiny stings of tears prick at the corners of your eyes, but you don't have a free hand to rub them away, or the strength to do it even if you did. "Everyone's just so… so nice. I know how lucky I am to have all of you. And I want to make sure earn it. Bradley says-"

" **whoa, hold up there. unless the end of that thought is 'bradley says a lot of baloney i should never ever listen to,' i don't wanna hear it. you ever think that we think _we're_ the lucky ones?** " He looks at your face and snorts. **"didn't think so. you gotta know, kid, nobody is ever gonna send you away 'cause you're not laughing all the time. you don't have to earn your place with us. that's not how it works."** Once again, in that way that he has, he slips right past your defenses to the heart of what you're really afraid of, and his smiling face blurs as your eyes fill with tears of embarrassment and relief. Through the haze, you watch his eyes widen in alarm. " **aw, hey, c'mon. no need for that.** "

As your tears slip free, he scoots up next to you and wraps his arms around you. As best you can with one hand still trapped in Asgore's, you bury your head against his shoulder and let his jacket absorb your tears, muffling your crying so that you don't wake your father. If he wakes up and you're better, Mom might make him go home to sleep, and right now you want as much of your family around you as you can get.

Sans, for his part, lets you cry. He's used to it by now. It's not that you cry a lot - and when you do, you try not to do it when anyone can see you. Enough people at the embassy already think you're a baby, and you know can't make anyone happy if they see you crying. But Sans understands things that nobody else does, sometimes, and as much as he protests when you do it, he always knows exactly what you need to stop crying, too. Sometimes it's a joke, sometimes it's a wild adventure, and sometimes it's just a warm shoulder and a safe pair of arms to hold you.

" **look, you work harder than anyone to make people happy, and you like what you do. i get that. but try to remember that we want you to be happy, too, and it's okay to tell us if you're not. even a happy person gets to be sad once in a while.** "

You smile against him and nod, and let him dry your tears with a corner of the blanket. "You're awfully smart, Sans."

" **shh. don't tell anyone or they'll make me do it all the time.** " Carefully, he nestles you into your pillows and tugs the blankets up around you. There's nothing he can do about your other hand, since Asgore's definitely not letting go any time soon, but he shrugs out of his jacket and lays it over you, and it keeps the chill at bay. " **think you can sleep without wandering off?** "

"I think so. Will you be around?"

" **i'm always around, kiddo.** " He gives Asgore a pointed look. " **so are a lot of people, thanks to you.** "

"You… you think Mom will ever forgive him?"

It's a difficult question to ask. You remember the photos in Sans' secret room. As many reasons as Toriel has for not forgiving Asgore, Sans has just as many. But he's also the only person you can ask. He's quiet a minute as he watches you, and he shrugs at last. " **hard to say. there's a lot to forgive… but then, you're pretty determined. and you're darned good at being an ambassador for folks who can't speak for themselves**." Shaking off the mood, he rests his hand against your head. " **whatever happens, it'll take time, so don't worry about it now. right now, your job is to get better enough that i can let my very anxious bro back in here. deal?** "

"Deal," you say, smiling, and close your eyes.

In moments, you're overwhelmed by a wave of something deep, and cool, and blue. It wraps around you like an old familiar blanket, or like the strong arms of a hug, and drags you down into peaceful, dreamless sleep.


End file.
